


The Song Has Faded, The Mask Is Gone

by rynling



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Child Ganondorf, Child Zelda, Gen, Gerudo Culture, Illustrated, Majora's Mask AU, Mild Elements of Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 03:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7669129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rynling/pseuds/rynling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Majora's Mask AU in which Zelda and Ganon are two haunted children who manage to reach out to each other from the shadows of their cursed lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Song Has Faded, The Mask Is Gone

**Author's Note:**

> I've imagined Zelda as the girl in Ikana Valley (Pamela) whose father has turned himself into a Gibdo, while Ganon occupies the role of the invisible guard (Shiro) in the Gerudo Fortress. 
> 
> This illustration is by the lovely [LEILA-S-P7 on DeviantArt](https://pocketseizure.deviantart.com/art/Song-and-Mask-commission-741072964).

The hero had come, but he hadn't stayed.

Or perhaps it was nothing more than a dream. Had a boy in green really appeared with an oddly shaped flute? Had he really played a melody that calmed her father's frenzied brain? She could see the hero in her mind's eye as clearly as a memory, and she could still feel the warm pressure of her father's hug on her shoulders.

But if a hero had come, why was her father still in the wardrobe, scratching at the inside of its wooden walls? Why was the concrete floor still spattered with spoiled food and excrement? Why were groans still rising up from the cellar stairs?

Zelda turned away from the door of the small house and trudged to the railing surrounding the crudely fashioned hole in the floor. She listened carefully, hoping against hope that something had changed.

"We were kings once," the thing that was her father moaned. "We ruled this land, we... The gods, our divine... The war was just... Written in... Rrrrrrresearrrch..."

There was tortured shriek, and Zelda jumped back in surprise, her heart hammering in her chest as the sound of her father's fists banging on the wardrobe echoed up the stairs. The reverberations had an unpleasant squelching quality that she didn't care to dwell on.

Zelda pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, but all her tears had already been shed. If no hero was coming, then she would have to save herself.

She hurried to gather a few provisions and the last of the bottled water into a rucksack and extinguished all the lamps. The only thing left to do was to use the last of the battery to crank a warbling tune through the trumpets bolted to the outside of the house. The pacifying effect of the music wouldn't last long, but it should give her enough time to get away from the restless Gibdos scratching at the dirt outside. Before she left, Zelda glanced over her shoulder at the stairs leading down to the basement. _May he rest in peace_ , she thought, and stepped into the outside air.

Although it was high afternoon, very little sunlight reached the secluded valley where her father had brought her with him to pursue his studies. Zelda hadn't wanted to leave Clock Town and begged him to allow her to stay behind, but he insisted on her company, claiming that her heritage was hidden in the forgotten ruins of a castle that lay to the east of Termina. The only things that had been hiding there, however, were grotesque imitations of human beings that shambled out of a fetid well. The mummified Gibdos could be kept away by means of the song leaking from the sound amplifiers, but the stream that powered the generator had suddenly run dry. Almost as soon as the music ceased something had happened to her father, something terrible.

As she fled, Zelda refused to look at the swaying figures that congregated around the dilapidated dwelling, nor did she pause to gaze at the crooked towers jutting over the canyon walls. Gibdos were not the only creatures haunting the valley, and she could not afford to linger.

Zelda walked for hours, the sun sinking lower in the sky. By the time she reached the river gorge, the clouds were stained orange and pink. The moon bore down from above them, its pitted face bearing an uncanny resemblance to a wicked leer. Word had come from Clock Town that people were preparing to flee, fearing that the moon would fall, but Zelda had more pressing concerns. She knew the Zora made their home in the western sea, and it might be possible for her to beg them for medicine for her father – if she could reach them in time.

As she made her way down the rocky trail leading to the bridge over the river, Zelda caught sight of a dark figure heading for the crossing from the other direction. She squinted to get a better look, worried that it was Sakon the thief, but the shadow's movements were too smooth, its path too direct. A stranger, then. Zelda considered hiding, but there was no cover around her, and she would most likely have been seen already. There was nothing to do except move forward and hope for the best.

Zelda slipped her cooking knife out of her rucksack and held it to her side, trying to conceal it in the folds of her dress, but the figure continued to walk toward her as if it didn't see her at all. When it stepped onto the rickety wooden planks of the bridge, Zelda could make out the shape of a boy not much older than herself. She kept her eyes fixed on him, waiting for him to acknowledge her, but he made no move to do so. Finding herself at a loss, Zelda put her knife back in her bag and waited for him to come to her.

She stared at the boy as he drew closer. He was like no one she had ever seen before. His skin was the color of the scorched earth of the canyon, and his hair was as red as the setting sun. His loose linen clothing was the gray no-color of spiderwebs, but the embroidery at its hems and fringes shone golden in the twilight. So too did his eyes, she noticed as he finally glanced up at her.

Zelda met the boy's gaze and smiled awkwardly. He blinked and stopped dead in his tracks.

"You can see me?" he asked, the consonants of his words sharpened by an odd accent.

 _How curious_ , Zelda thought. "Of course I can see you," she said.

The boy took a step back and touched the cloudy piece of amber that was affixed to his forehead. "But... You can really see me?" he insisted.

Zelda shook her head. "I don't understand. You're standing right there. Why wouldn't I be able to see you?"

"Great Din," the boy muttered. "So he was real."

Now Zelda was even more confused. "Who was real?" she asked.

"A young man came to the fortress, dressed in green, and he had a..." The boy trailed off but then mimed holding an instrument to his mouth, fitting his fingers over its imaginary holes.

"A flute!" Zelda shouted, suddenly understanding. "It was blue, right?"

The boy nodded and looked at her in wonder.

She held out her hand. "I'm Zelda," she introduced herself. The boy stared at her outstretched arm and then thrust forward his own, mimicking her gesture. She grabbed his hand and shook it.

"Nice to meet you," she continued, using what she thought of as her adult voice. "What's your name?"

"I'm Ganon," the boy replied as he watched her shake his hand. Zelda felt a fluttering in her stomach and an uneasy sense of déjà vu, but it passed quickly.

"So, um, Ganon," Zelda began, "where are you headed? I'm from Ikana Valley, and I'm going to the ocean."

"No!" Ganon dropped her hand and crossed his arms in front of him in a warding gesture. "You don't want to go there! Something has upset the Zora – and the pirates."

This was bad news. Zelda tilted her head to the side as she considered the situation. "Okay, but I promise you don't want to be anywhere near where I just came from. Why are you going there anyway?"

Ganon pointed toward the horizon, indicating the stone towers peeking over the mountain ridges. "It is said the gods once lived there," he murmured. "Perhaps they live there still."

Zelda frowned at Ganon's uncomfortably formal way of speaking. "Nothing lives there now," she said, shuddering at the thought of the lurching Gibdos. "And you definitely don't want to be there after dark." She reached for Ganon's hand. "Why don't you come with me down to the river? We can camp out under the bridge and decide where we're going."

Ganon's shoulders slumped, and Zelda wondered what he had been through. What could have driven him to come here, of all places? Without letting her grip on his hand falter, she pulled him toward the far end of the bridge. He trotted along behind her, apparently resigned to allowing her to lead the way. She guided him down the embankment, and finally they came to a rest beside the cliff over the rushing water. Instead of entering the shadow cast by the bridge, Zelda sat down and gestured for Ganon to join her. Casting a dubious look at the drop-off, he swept aside the hem of his robe as he lowered himself to sit beside her.

The sun had almost set behind them, and the moon scowled down from the fathomless heavens. The sky gave her no peace of mind, but still Zelda sat and watched its colors change. She was reassured by the presence of the boy at her side, who maintained a companionable silence.

"Did you say you met the hero?" Zelda asked, remembering their brief conversation on the bridge. As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized that Ganon probably wouldn't understand what she meant by "the hero," which is how she had come to think of the boy in green.

To her surprise, Ganon nodded. "I met him in the Gerudo Fortress," he said. "Our leader had taken a catch of Zora eggs, and he came to take them back. He was a Zora himself, or it could be that he wasn't. It could be..." Ganon frowned as he picked up a pebble and tossed it over the edge of the cliff. "It could be that he didn't come at all," he added in a small voice.

Zelda placed a hand on his shoulder. "I understand," she assured him. "It was like dream, like you remember it happening, but then it didn't, not when you woke up."

"It was just so." Ganon picked up another rock and threw it into the river. "He talked to me. No one ever talked to me."

"Why didn't anyone talk to you? Were you a prisoner of the pirates?"

"No, not a prisoner. I am their son."

"But I thought the Gerudo are all women..."

"They say I am an aberration, that Gerudo boys are cursed. I live with them, but I am not one of them. That's why they gave me the name of a demon."

A vague memory stirred in Zelda's mind of her father mentioning a terrible monster that once threatened Termina, but now was not the time for such reminiscences. "Why don't you live with your father?" she asked.

"The Gerudo have no fathers."

"But surely you must have a father somewhere?"

Ganon gave Zelda a blank look, and she decided to change the subject.

"So the hero talked to you?"

"Yes. He said something to me, I can't remember what. But then he touched my face, and it was like all my sadness fell away. He took..." Ganon once again pressed his fingers against the piece of amber on his forehead, as if to reassure himself that it was still there. "He took a mask from my face. It was gray, and made of stone, and..." Here he paused to outline an indistinct shape with his hands. "And it was ugly. It hurt, to think I looked like that."

Zelda was struck by a heaviness in her chest. She had sometimes felt the same way when her father was too busy with his books to remember that she was there with him.

"I think you've very handsome," she said, smiling, but Ganon ignored her and resumed his story.

"He took the mask, and then he left. My sisters and aunts all came to me, asking if I had seen him. I... I told them I had, and for once they listened to me. For once they wanted me to walk with them on the fortress walls. For once I was given a spear, and..." He flexed his arm and wrist as if he were still holding it, and then shrugged. "But when I woke up the next morning, nothing had happened. We still had the Zora eggs, and they still ignored me, as if I wasn't there at all. I started to think that I really was wearing a mask, some sort of invisible demon mask that made it so that no one could see my face."

Ganon sighed. "And that's why I came here, to find the towers of the gods. I don't want to wear a mask anymore. If the hero won't help me," he scowled, clenching his fist, "then I'll do it myself."

Zelda immediately sensed the resonance of his words with her own resolution, but this did not cheer her. In fact, Ganon's voiced echo of her desperation made her feel empty and weightless.

"There are no gods in the towers," she whispered. "The only thing back there is death."

She heard the fabric of Ganon's hood rustle as he turned to look at her, but she didn't want to meet his eyes. Instead she picked up two rocks from the ground. After weighing them both in her hands, she offered one to Ganon. He took it, and, after she counted to three, they threw the stones as far as they could into the gorge. They hit the water together with a satisfying plonk.

Ganon leaned forward and circled his arms around his knees. "Do you ever feel that you don't belong here? That this isn't your story?" he asked.

Somehow, beyond reason, Zelda knew exactly what he was talking about. "All the time," she replied. "Maybe this is the hero's story, but he's gone. It's just us now."

Ganon looked at her, his strange golden eyes gleaming in the last light of the dying sun. "So what do we do now?"

Zelda tilted her head back, and the eldritch face of the moon crept into her field of vision. "If that thing falls on us, it won't matter," she muttered.

She felt a soft weight on her shoulder and turned to find that Ganon had extended his hand to comfort her. "But let's say it doesn't," he offered.

Zelda covered his hand with hers. "Then maybe we can go somewhere else, someplace where there aren't any heroes or demons or gods."

Ganon smiled and squeezed her fingers as the stars began to appear in the night sky beyond the mountains.


End file.
